On new beginnings.

PUBLIC NEWS #19122
Date: 12/07/2012 at 04:27
From: Mathonwy Corso, the Orator
To : Everyone
Subj: On new beginnings.

Greetings, Shallamese.

I address you all in such a way not because I wish to throw the fate of
your City into your faces, but because I am sure that the unthinkable
magnitude of what had transpired has very likely not penetrated the
shroud of grief in which so many of your minds must surely be wrapped.

No, believe me when I say that the world mourns your loss, and that it
has left every single person so much the worse because of what happened.
Shallam, with its vast and ancient history reaching back almost as far
as Ashtan's, was surely one of the world's cultural centres, and the
consignment of the knowledge and resources it held to such an unexpected
and unforgivable grave pains every scholar, every librarian, and every
civilised soul Sapience has ever borne.

I have fought alongside many of you and fought against many more, and I
can say that while I've had my differences with a few individuals, it
has only ever been a few individuals with whom I have shared a quarrel--
the vast majority of you I have found to be a kind and honourable
people, worthy of so much better than you'd so often received under the
yoke of a zealous few. Your City was founded as a haven of culture to
rival that even of my own home now, and it comes as no surprise to any
student of history that during the nascency of the Church and when the
flames of zealotry dimmed their darkest, you came closest to
accomplishing those goals. So many of you poured your tears, sweat, and
blood into a City that so seldomly respected you for those
contributions, when it should have recognised the honour it bore simply
to call you its citizenry. So often, so many were made to feel so
feeble, and you Shallamese deserved-- deserve-- so much better.

The faces of so many wear the singular mask of anxious uncertainty these
days because no City knows whether or not it will be the next to meet a
similar fate. Ashtan narrowly avoided such a diaster, surely, but who
knows when the dala'myrr will move against our City-- or any City--
next, and with greater numbers? No, this fate is still very much a
possibility for all of us, and so we look to yours because we know we
might be the next to share them.

Now, there are those of you, I realise, who will find homes elsewhere in
Sapience-- to the Ithmias or the South. Some of you might remain without
a home in mourning what has fallen. In time, I hope you are able to find
the peace you seek in these places, for if any deserve a respite, it is
you.

There will be those industrious few, though, who will strike out to
wrest from the wilderness a new location for an old home, and to your
ambition, I raise a glass and my voice in praise. The faster you can
begin construction, the faster you can begin to reclaim your destiny as
a cultural force, and I encourage those of you who remain refugees for
the rebuilding efforts to keep in mind that every voice and every hand
laying brick and mortar matters, not just the few directing the flow of
labour. If they are to benefit from your toil, you should benefit from
their tolerance, and I implore you not to let the few decide the fates
of the many, as has so often been the rather disastrous case.

Hold out for the fairness and respect that each of you deserve,
Shallamese; after all, at their absolute best, the ideals of the East
were about how every soul is important to Creation. Make your leaders
live up to those ideals in deeds as well as words.